Congressional Democrats on Monday unveiled broad police reform legislation, pledging to transform law enforcement across the country in the wake of the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis, which has sparked nationwide protests.
The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 would ban chokeholds, establish a national database to track police misconduct and prohibit certain no-knock warrants, among a wide array of steps.
Leaders of the House and Senate Democrats released the legislation, which has been drafted by members of the Congressional Black Caucus, at a Capitol Hill news conference moments after holding a moment of silence for Floyd and others. Lawmakers wore kente cloths as they spoke.
Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said the legislation presents “a bold, transformative vision of policing in America.”
“Never again should the world be subjected to witnessing what we saw on the streets in Minneapolis: the slow murder of an individual by a uniformed police officer,” she said at the outset of a news conference.
Bass said the legislation has more than 200 co-sponsors in the House and the Senate.
It remains unclear how receptive Republicans and President Trump will be to the bill, which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pledged to pass swiftly in the Democratic-led House.
Pelosi urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to take up the legislation soon after it clears her chamber.
“The president must not stand in the way of justice,” she said. “Congress and the country will not relent until this legislation is made into law.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he would push McConnell to move toward debate and a vote on the bill in July.
“A divided nation cannot wait for healing, for solutions,” Schumer said.
In recent days, some Republicans have expressed support for legislation to rein in police violence, but it remains to be seen whether they will support elements of the expansive proposal offered by the Democrats. In August, after the mass shootings in Texas and Ohio, there was a push for bipartisan gun violence legislation — an effort that stalled weeks later.
The House Judiciary Committee has planned a hearing Wednesday, the first on police issues since the protests broke out. The Senate Judiciary Committee has a hearing slated for June 16.
The bill contains several provisions that would make it easier to hold officers accountable for misconduct in civil and criminal court. One proposal long sought by civil rights advocates would change “qualified immunity,” the legal doctrine that shields officers from lawsuits, by lowering the bar for plaintiffs to sue officers for alleged civil rights violations.
Another section would change federal law so that victims of excessive force or other violations need only show that officers “recklessly” deprived them of their rights. The current statute requires victims to show that officers’ actions were “willful.”
The bill would also expand the Justice Department’s powers to investigate and prosecute police misconduct, which sponsors contend have been undermined by the Trump administration.
It would grant subpoena power to the department’s civil rights division to conduct “pattern and practice” investigations, looking for departmentwide evidence of bias or misconduct, and provide grants to state attorneys general to do the same.
Other provisions seek to directly change police practices.
The bill seeks to ban chokeholds, carotid holds and no-knock warrants in drug cases at the federal level, while pressuring states and municipalities to enact similar prohibitions by withholding funding.
Those types of maneuvers have fueled outrage over police brutality in recent days. Floyd died after then-officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee on the 46-year-old black man’s neck for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis late last month. Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder. Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old black woman, was fatally shot in March by Louisville police officers serving a no-knock warrant.
To keep “problematic” officers from bouncing from one law enforcement agency to another, the bill would create a “national police misconduct registry” to compile complaints and discipline records.
The legislation is sponsored by Bass, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.).
“We’re here because black Americans want to stop being killed,” Harris said at the news conference with her colleagues.
Before the news conference, Pelosi led the lawmakers in an extended moment of silence. The observance lasted 8 minutes, 46 seconds, the exact time that a Minneapolis police officer held his knee on Floyd’s neck before he died May 25.
Before most lawmakers dropped to kneel, Pelosi read the names of Floyd and others who had died in recent years in police custody and noted the observance was taking place in Emancipation Hall, which was named for the enslaved workers who helped to build the U.S. Capitol.
“You see how long it was to have that knee on his neck,” Pelosi said after rising, referring to Floyd’s encounter with the police.
Derek Hawkins contributed to this report.
